The Store-Bought Taco Sauce You Should Never Leave The Supermarket With

When you're in the mood for tacos, there's almost nothing that can stop you from getting to the table. But when you're pulling together the fixings for your favorite spread, sometimes an intense craving can lead to questionable decisions at the grocery store (especially if you shop while hungry).

Considering the breadth of taco sauces and condiments these days, making an informed selection regardless of headspace can be tricky. That's why we put together an ultimate ranking of taco sauces, and we're here to help you eliminate at least one option: Pica Pico Medium Green Sauce.

While this bottle isn't totally irredeemable (it is pleasant in its acidity, for example), overall, its flavor and ingredient list just didn't cut the mustard for us. Especially when there are a plethora of tasty selections to help you create the roasted chicken tacos with salsa verde and crema or salsa verde green chicken enchiladas of your dreams, you should never have to settle for a sub-par sauce experience.

Although you might not know it from reading the label, the most off-putting part of this sauce was an inexplicable and seemingly unintentional bitterness. Nothing in the ingredient list would indicate the source of that pungent taste, but it proved to be distracting for us bite after bite. Although bitterness is not inherently bad (and can be pleasant under the right circumstances), it's probably not typical of what you're looking for in a topping and may be at odds with the filling of your tacos.

What is printed on the bottle, however, starts out pretty well — green chile peppers, roasted green jalapeños, and tomatillos. But then, it devolves into some less delicious-sounding inclusions, among them, modified food starch, xanthan gum, and dextrose, along with preservatives. It can be tough to escape some emulsifiers and similar ingredients when it comes to store-bought taco sauces, but this one lacked the pepper, herb, and allium-forward flavor profile of other options — and perhaps that's in part due to the inclusion of unspecified artificial flavors as well.

If you're in need of a green taco sauce alternative, look no further than La Victoria or Hormel Herdez Taqueria Sauce Verde. The former is a simple formula that's extra mild for the more heat-averse among your party. That latter, with its fire-roasted tomatillos and a blend of peppers (including poblanos and jalapeños), as well as garlic and cilantro (as opposed to Pico Pica's cilantro extractive), is alternately fruity and toasty, with a mild but perceptible and pleasant heat factor. The Hormel Herdez brand also offers a citrusy, herbaceous cilantro lime version, and all three of these scored higher for us than the Pico Pica green sauce (and none of them feature artificial flavors), so do yourself a favor and leave that one on the shelf.

If these options don't feel like they scratch the saucy itch for you, you can always try your hand at a homemade green topping like a charred salsa verde, which features spices like cumin and herbs like Mexican oregano. And while it may require a little extra time and effort, you can always plan ahead and make up a batch to store in the fridge for up to five days, which can help eliminate the panic decision when a surprise taco craving strikes. Given the many ways you can gussy up your taco experience, there's no need to settle for last-place sauce.